A Marriage Story of 39 Years Your Marriage Is Worth It

39 years, today. That’s how long my parents have been married. And I’ve basically been there for every moment, minus the first nine months.

I’ve seen the good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly, but most importantly, I’ve seen the goodness of God in my parents’ story.

Their marriage is not perfect today, even after 39 years, but God has been so good and gracious to them and to our family as they have stuck it out and persevered and believed Him to get to where they are today. God has helped them persevere and endure through some of the hardest issues of marriage and life, issues where most have never made it through, and they give God all the glory. It’s truly a miracle.

What, what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living! (Psalm 27:13, AMPC)

This morning, their anniversary, my dad sent out a text on the family strand to remind his kids—who are three other married couples—how fast 39 years will go by. He encouraged us to grab hold of our marriages each day by giving God thanks for the gift of our spouses. He encouraged us to VALUE each other.

His words reminded me that when you value someone and something—your spouse and your marriage—you won’t let them go, you won’t lose them, you won’t quit, you won’t give up. And after seeing what God did for my parents, I can add, NO MATTER WHAT. Because trust me, their story falls under the “NO MATTER WHAT” category.

In the family text this morning, my dad said, “Your mom is a gift to me! Thank you, Dana, for being the remarkable gift you are!” 

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17, CSB)

When we VALUE and CONSIDER our spouses as GIFTS from GOD, we will never let them go. God only gives good gifts straight out of Heaven. And that is what each of our spouses are to us, GOOD GIFTS straight from the Father who doesn’t change His mind about the gifts He has given us. And if He doesn’t, then neither should we.

And this is what I’ve seen in my parents. Were they tempted MANY times to give up and change their minds about one another? 100% they were. BUT GOD. They didn’t.

In hundreds of tempting trials and troubles, God always gave them a reason as to why they shouldn’t quit. He always helped them stay together. And to this day, I am SO THANKFUL.

My mom responded in the text strand, which reminded me that when we don’t quit standing and we continue to hold on to our spouse, a breakthrough finally comes. It doesn’t have to remain in “hardship” for forever. She encouraged us that when breakthrough does come, as a result of us not quitting on God’s goodness and on each other, IT IS WORTH IT.

The valuable things in life are always WORTH IT.

My parents' words this morning helped me realize once again that our marriages are so much BIGGER THAN OURSELVES.

I’ve seen how their 39 years of STAYING TOGETHER has affected the countless marriages watching them, to whom God has given place for them to minister to. Their unbroken covenant has affected their children, and their children’s children, and the children of those they’ve ministered to. And it will continue to go down from generation to generation.

Today, I thought you’d like to hear some of their testimony, which they each wrote around 6 years ago.

The first section is from my dad’s perspective:

May 2, 2016

This year my wife and I will celebrate 33 years of marriage together. I am excited and extremely grateful about this because we are still married, and finally after a long time I am genuinely pursuing God and His vision for our lives. When I say a long time, I mean that for over 30 years of our marriage I didn’t pursue the things of God. As a result, our marriage suffered to the point that many times we just acknowledged each other that we were married. We both were Christians, had children together, and I learned to put up a good front, even to my wife.

There were some good times together in those 30 years and I knew that we were supposed to be together, but for most of it there wasn’t an excitement in our marriage relationship. There often wasn’t a joy in being together. It seemed like there was more heartache and even bitterness toward each other than a loving relationship where two become one and really enjoy each other’s company.

Looking back, I know most of this was my fault. I was reaping the results of what I sowed into our marriage for over thirty years. (Time has a way of giving a clearer picture if we are willing to open our eyes.) After time in prayer and looking back over our almost 33 years of marriage, I can clearly see that I am a blessed man to have a wife that has stayed with me through everything I have done over the years.

I know that I am to write this testimony, yet the purpose isn’t to describe and display every sordid detail of our marriage. This testimony is about how God has changed my life and marriage. It is to show and explain how God has brought restoration, healing, and forgiveness to our marriage relationship. It is a “coming out party” of sorts to share my heart and be real with others in how God has changed me. [Much of this change has come through the faith-filled teachings of the Word of God from the church God has led us to.] However even with a great church and great teaching, nothing would have changed until I made a choice to do what the Word of God says.

I knew after I was saved at age 18 that I was called to preach. When we were first married, we made plans and knew we were to dedicate our lives to ministry. Even so, I let so many things cloud my direction and my pursuit of the things God had for me. I would get a knowing in my heart of what God wanted, get excited, and then somehow stop any progress. For instance, God told me to go to school to get my Bible degree.  In our 3rd year of marriage and our 2nd child on the way God worked out every detail for us to move 1300 miles and start Bible school. You could see God’s help and hand on everything. 

There are many more examples that I could share about how I heard from God but did not do what He said to do. Through it all God never stopped loving me or giving me chance after chance or opportunity after opportunity to pursue Him and His calling for my life. Looking back, I wonder how I could have been so stupid or ignorant. Here I was a confessing to be a born-again Christian, who didn’t live like a Christian at all. There was no victory, no joy, no peace, and definitely no purpose in what I was doing. For years and years, I felt like I was living in a dry place. Wandering without any purpose.

I often thought about the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness for 40 years to no avail. They never reached the destination God gave them. I often would think how ignorant or dumb can you be? I made a judgement toward those that I read about. The judgement was that I would never be like them and do what they did. However, for 30 years I WAS THAT! I pursed my own plans, not God’s.

I walked away from God time and time again. I wasn’t faithful to God or my wife or myself for that matter. What my parents and friends thought of me was more important. My plans were more important to me than God was. I didn’t cleave to my wife. I didn’t cover her or my family with prayer or lay out a vision. I was living in the wilderness!

I wanted to blame all my shortcomings and failures on how I was raised or on somebody else or something else rather than just sucking it up and looking at myself in the mirror and being honest with myself that it was my own choices and actions in the past that has brought me to this point. My marriage and my life were in shambles because of what I did! I can’t even blame it on the devil! I know that he uses things to blind us and to try and keep us in darkness, but the issue was that I didn’t make Jesus the Lord in my life, and I sought my own plans rather than His. I wasn’t seeking God 1st in my life or marriage.

Today things are different, and I give thanks to God every day for His mercy and grace! God never quit on me! His love is phenomenal! I can say today that there are more days of victory in our marriage than defeat! We have way more days of joy and when we see or discern any strife, we work to stop it before it ever starts. We tell self-pity and depression to go someplace else! It is better every day!  Why? It is better because I made a choice to go after God in everything I do. I have made the choice to stop living according to my flesh and to live my life according to the Spirit. I realized things in my past do not define me or how I will be in my life. 

I was once a liar, now I am a man of truth! I was once unfaithful, now I am faithful! I was once a man of dishonor, now I am a man of honor! I could go on and on, but it is more appropriate to say I am a new creature in Christ Jesus and the old things are passed away. All has become new! 

God restores and rebuilds. I am in love with my wife more today than I could ever have thought possible! She is my best friend and I thank God for it!

Finally, I just wanted to give a small summary. I really have never been a very touchy, feely type of guy. I think my past tried to persuade me that you couldn’t be touchy-feely and be much of a man. Well God has helped me immensely in learning about love and how love works. It is displayed time and time again through my pastor in how he teaches. I can see it! I know that he is a man’s man and I probably wouldn’t have received what I have from someone else. The Word of God that comes from our church and from those at the pulpit has changed my life! I have learned that perfect love casts out all fear. I don’t have to live in fear anymore. I used to fight because of fear, but today I can be a real man because of love. I can walk in love toward my wife every day. I can be the new man God intended me to be! I can and will live in victory with humility and love toward others. Thanks be to God!!

My Mom’s side of the testimony:

May 2, 2016

When my husband and I got married we were Christians and had a vision to serve the Lord full time together our whole life. We knew my husband was supposed to somehow go to Bible College and become an ordained licensed minister. Right away though we never took the time to invest in our marriage bond and truly become “one”. We didn’t value it enough or the commitment we just made. We were young and still did whatever our family told us to do, instead of “leaving & cleaving."

It wasn’t long before we allowed our family and the world to begin to distract us from our vision. We recognized it and started seeking God again about moving away from family and about what Bible College my husband should attend. After much seeking we found one that we had peace about. It was in a state far between both sides of our families. God worked out every detail for us to pack up and move there and for my husband to start classes.

After 2 years of him being on the Dean’s List and getting straight “A’s” in all his Bible classes, our third child was born with a serious illness and didn’t leave the hospital for months and was in and out for years. We had pressure from all sides and began to lose our vision and direction we had from the Lord. My husband made a choice to change his major from Bible to History and English. We justified it and said he could teach in a Christian school and that would be our ministry.

He graduated and the first school he applied to he didn’t get the job. Then immediately his family offered him a job starting a business with them. By this time, we were really off track because of the cares of the world and disobedience so we didn’t even see this as a huge detour to our calling. We always justified whatever we did by saying we would do ministry with it. Ministry was still in our hearts and kept coming to us.

This business with family ended up being the biggest mistake of our marriage and costing us so much in so many ways with our family, our children, our finances, and our marriage. There was always strife and division, and family members were always allowed to come between my husband and I, mostly because there was never a “leaving & cleaving” at the beginning of our marriage. Standing up to family was something my husband did not do at that time. There was such a control and stronghold on him. After a disastrous ending with this family business my husband separated himself from his family and began to “try” to cleave to me.  

Off and on through the years I would “try” praying Bible promises for our marriage and for him as my husband. It never lasted long. I would become frustrated and overwhelmed and wanted to quit. I would weigh out leaving him vs. staying with him. I always chose to stay and keep trying though because of the children and because I really knew we were supposed to be together. This back & forth pattern went on for years and years and years. I would get a new prayer book of “Bible promises for your marriage and husband” (for my collection) and get excited and pray them for a few weeks. I would immediately see results and then slack off, mistakenly believing the devil’s lie that everything was fixed now so I could back off. Then BOOM! It wouldn’t be long, and we would be right back to the strife and division and me wanting to pack up and leave. 

I craved to be in the will of God and ministering to people. We were a wreck though and in no shape to speak life and freedom to anyone. Anytime we tried to minister to people together I knew it was hypocrisy and I hated it. We both longed for help and even considered moving 8 hours away to be able to go to a “real-faith church."

In August 2005 after us being broken again and changing churches, [the Lord led us to a newly opened “real-faith church” that was only an hour away.] We began to not only hear faith being preached but we could actually see a whole different way of living a Christian life and “doing church”-so to speak. At this new church, there was submission to authority being exercised, genuine love being manifested, and we could see the pastors practicing what they preached and how faith was really working for them. My husband and I had true hope of full victory for the first time in our marriage. To me, this was the last try. I was going to walk away and start over my life as a single woman if this didn’t work for us.

Immediately I had unctions to begin to speak differently about our situation and really believe change could and would come to my husband and our marriage. In July 2006 I made a three-page list of positive things to say and pray for my husband. The more I said them, the more I could see it happening in him.

I allowed the Lord to work on me too. It seemed like all I was doing for the next several years was getting HARD, HARD correction from the preaching of the Word.

(Correction still comes regularly-Praise the Lord). God helped me not to run though, but to receive it and change things in myself. My husband and I were still going up and down in our relationship victory, but I still had hope, and in between the frustrating times, that hope kept me going.

In 2011 our daughter gave me some typed out pages of New Testament prayers in Scriptures that she was praying. I grabbed ahold of them and started praying them over my husband. 

Again, this praying didn’t last long because my motives were wrong. The truth is I was so mad at him for not serving God and keeping to our marriage plan. My intentions were to change my husband and then I could go forward with my life—once he was fixed. I was always, all these years, waiting on my husband to get “fixed.” I had no vision outside of us ministering together as a couple, so I knew he had to change some things and get on track before that could ever happen for us, because he is my head.

Over these years, here at our God-directed church and hearing all the messages about love, honor, obedience, and getting on the path of God’s will for our lives, we began to act on the words spoken and layers of junk began to fall off. It was finally getting through to us. God’s will and plan for us both together as “One” started becoming clear again. We started warming up to each other and preferring each other “somewhat.”

A year and a half ago I got to a place where I chose to stop focusing on my husband changing. I told the Lord I wanted to change and would go forward and obey Him with or without my husband in whatever way God would allow me to, even if it meant me living my whole life and then going to Heaven never having fulfilled my and my husband’s calling together as a married couple.

Early Spring of last year I picked up the New Testament prayers in Scriptures pages again and this time I prayed them not JUST for him, but for “me first” and then us together. This time it wasn’t “pointed” and robotic reading and speaking, but it was as if I had a machete in my hand—chopping away the heavy brush around us and clearing a path to the highway!! I also meditated on all the Proverb scriptures about contentious women and fools and many other passages of Scripture that would help me. I asked the Lord to help me change everything I needed to change to become a better wife for my man. 

It is amazing how God’s word works! Within two days of me making an effort and praying and speaking all these Scriptures over myself FIRST, I began to change, and my husband began to see a difference in me and my attitude. He stopped being as defensive and distant like he had been. Then soon I had the ok from the Lord to pray these scriptures over my spouse and I together as one. Never praying them JUST for him.

Gradually I started seeing major change in both of us and a bonding take place like we have never had before. In the past year we have made “purposeful movements” towards God’s plan for our lives and marriage. 

I have been able to watch and enjoy seeing the Word of God open me and my husband’s eyes of our understanding and wake us both up to see clear direction for God’s plan for us as husband and wife. 

I have been so blessed to see my husband’s desires change and joy and excitement come back into his heart. I have watched him shut off the TV and humble himself and repent of everything he has ever done that hurt his relationship with God, me, our children, and others. I have witnessed his heart soften and his prayer language take off like it never has before. He and I have changed from being marriage partners to friends, even best friends. Having fun together more than we ever have since first married almost 33 years ago. Going on dates and getaways (without children—haha). Finally, connecting and becoming ONE.

It has been a year now of faithfully using God’s Word to bush-whack through the jungle of junk. My husband now uses God’s Word in the same way and together we cleared a path not just to the highway but to the interstate. We are now rolling with clear direction and unity and using God’s Word daily as a road map to see which way to go next. Most fun together we have ever had!  My husband is finally letting me be his “help meet” and not resisting it. He has gone back to where we first got off the path and picked up Bible courses again and is obeying God in other things he knows to do also. 

Yes, we missed over 30 years of pure peace and joy because of not doing God’s will. We missed years and years of not loving and helping people like God planned because we were so self-centered and caught up in our own issues. We hindered our children and caused some destruction to come to them. BUT!!, God loved us through it and has had mercy on us. Our children are all increasing and loving God more and more. Now my husband and I almost every day read and study God’s Word TOGETHER and talk about it and pray. My husband has taken the lead and I have let go. God is growing us up fast (per my husband’s prayer) and is helping us make up for lost time. 

This church was my last hope to help my husband and I get on track with God’s plan for us. God helped me to cling to hope and to the FIRST word He gave us when we were married. God helped me not to quit and run away. He helped me to believe His Word and use it to change my circumstances. I have regrets of not sticking to it and using the Word of God faithfully years ago, but God has been merciful and faithful to me and my heart for Him and His plan for my husband and me.

I’m so thankful to God for sending us to good, faith-filled, truthful teaching from His Word. I would be a divorced single woman now and STILL unfulfilled from not doing God’s will with my spouse. Instead, my husband and I are on track and our children are too. I encourage all husbands and wives not to give up and to ONLY use God’s Word to change things, not their own agenda, like I did for years.

God’s Word is working mightily in me and my life and He is helping us fulfill His plan for our lives. I’m so thankful! 

My parents' testimonies were written over 6 years ago, now. And I can attest that over these past 6 years, God has led them into the best place in their marriage and ministry that they have ever seen. Within these past 6 years, they finally did go back to Bible school, and each graduated after 3 years of full-time school. They are now in the perfect plan of God, doing His will, and seeking Him wholeheartedly to accomplish all He has for them. I’ve never seen them so happy, and to God be all the glory.

And now look at them today :)  

Let this bless you today.

Love, Jess.